crossposted from unbossed

It's been a tough - but exciting - year for workers at the Bay Area News Group-East Bay (BANG-EB) papers. Last August, the company began its anti-union campaign, withdrawing recognition of the union at some locations and using a consolidation to withdraw recognition from all unions.

That was August 2007, but after an NLRB election victory, the workers are gearing up to fight for their rights under a new collective bargaining agreement. It won't be easy. When an employer wants to be anti-union, they can be ruthless, defying the law and even destroying their own companies in the process.

Labor Creates All Wealth © 2008 Josh MacPhee

As usual, the ever-expanding economic divideremains the most under-considered issue worldwide. Through the prism (pyramid) of its creation, the ways it maintains itself, and its long and short term ramifications, every other major issue of our time is better understood, if not directly tied. This includes war, immigration, education, crime, health care, even climate change and national security. At what point should we (they)be more afraid of our own economically terrorized 90+%than of bands of 'extremists' holed up in caves on the other side of the world, disenfranchised and radicalized by the exact same forces?

John McCain is heading to Colombia today to meet with President Alvaro Uribe, a man McCain considers a "friend".  I would like to educate McCain about his so-called friend and enlighten those of us here at Daily Kos about the horrific failure of our government's main aid package to Colombia, known as Plan Colombia.  I wrote a paper for my Foreign Relations of Latin America course at George Washington University recently about Plan Colombia's failure, and I would like to share it with all of you.  It lays out in stark detail the abuses of Uribe's government, the coordinated killings of labor leaders and academics, and the actions of rogue U.S. soldiers in Colombia.  Uribe has met several times with paramilitary leaders who are currently in U.S. custody on drug trafficking charges.  Are these the kind of "friends" you are looking for, Senator McCain?  My paper starts over the fold...

NY nonunion construction: With guns, threats and empty promises this modern day gangster keeps his workers from joining a union

Capoccia rose as a housing developer as he donated thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Mayor Giuliani, Governor Pataki, and President Bush. He recently told the newsletter The Real Deal that he launched his career by using a truck full of day laborers hired from a street corner.

Word is that there are about 52 hotels in the works that will be built completely Nonunion in New York, when they are complete there will be no Hotel workers union either, heres a kinda/sorta follow up to NYC: Four Points by Sheraton Paying Poverty Wages / Using Taxpayers For Workers Healthcare

It's Friday night. I don't have to work but she does. I have a bottle of Absolut Pears and time on my hands. So I'm checking through the usual sites and I have a peek at that Younger than McCain site to see if one of my submissions has been posted. None have, but I notice A Day in the Life of a Middle-Class Republican because, well, my own blog is called A Day in the Life.

Right away I see another tired, forwarded-100-times-through-the-intarwebs parable, except it seems fairly accurate. So I click. And read through. And I'm pretty sure it's accurate. But there are no links and no citations.... until now.

(Crossposted at CtW Connect)

Code Name: Mr. Black

Current Job: Chief Advisor to John McCain

Previous Job: Lobbyist for corporate criminals and violent dictators

Meet more of Charlie Black's clients, after the jump...

In the current toxic environment for Labor, union organization and membership has been on the downslide ever since the Nixon Administration and the National Republican Party took control of the public argument. Union membership has gone from around 23% in the mid 1970s to just 7% now. Part of the tactical decision making included not just publicly demonizing the cause of Labor, but to create laws and regulations that provide a breeding ground for dividing labor among themselves.

As a member of AFTRA, part of the AFL-CIO umbrella, I stand at the crossroads of a historic break in the TV & Film acting unions. For the first time in 27 years, AFTRA and SAG supended Phase One the Collective Bargaining agreement. More after the fold.

I want to share with you all our endorsement today of Sen. Barack Obama. Seth Michaels on our staff has the details below.

The AFL-CIO today endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.

The AFL-CIO General Board, which voted to endorse Obama, includes presidents of all 56 unions in the AFL-CIO, as well as Executive Council members and representatives of state and local federations, trade departments and constituency groups. The General Board votes by per capita membership. In conjunction with the endorsement, the AFL-CIO launched a new website: Meet Barack Obama.

TAKE ACTION TODAY!

We told you about the tragic death of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez who died while laboring in a Stockton area vineyard in 100 plus degree heat. According to a Wednesday AP story, the San Joaquin County Coroner has officially confirmed that Maria died of heat stroke. Maria had been working 8 hours in the blistering heat without shade or sufficient water. The closest water supply was a 10 minute walk away.

According to worker charges filed with Cal OSHA, the land owner where Maria   suffered heat stroke continues to utilize labor contractors that don't abide by the law. And Friday, a month after Maria's passing, another charge was filed for lack of water and shade at one of the company's locations.

In my efforts to call George Bush and Dick Cheney to account one split I have noticed is the split between those favoring impeachment and those who respond: "Forget that, war criminals.  The Hague."  The surprise is, you might expect the latter to emanate from a correspondingly farther "left" side of the "looney left," as both Democrats and Republicans are fond of calling anyone longing for the rule of law.  But it doesn't.  This is what you hear from the right side of the political spectrum now peeling off from Bush.  The blunt manner of speaking in some parts of the country prevents me from reporting all that I hear, say, from small towns in West Texas.  The remarks might be construed, incorrectly, as threats against the president.

Talk about impeachment in these parts and half the time you'll draw a blank stare.  Say "war crimes" and some heads start nodding.  These are families who have made the lion's share of the sacrifices in the wars of George Bush.  You can't travel long out here before you find yourself on a  "hero flight," which means the plane you are on is bringing another mama's boy back home to her in a box...  

This diary won't be popular, but it needs to be said.  This past weekend, UCLA finally finished up the school year.  Bill Clinton was supposed to have come spoken at Commencement for the College of Letters and Science.  However, because of a labor dispute between the UC and AFSCME, Clinton ended up not speaking.  Now, the replacement was Ariana Huffington.  But she too backed out at the last minute because of the labor dispute.

Note: There was NOT a strike going on.  It hadn't gotten to that stage.  They're still in negotiations for a new contract.  But the union requested that speakers cancel their commencement speeches.

Read below the fold to see how things went downhill.

BLOG LIVE WITH PROGRESSIVE CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE BYRON DELEAR

DONOR DRIVE TO HELP UNSEAT BUSH REPUB. PRO-WAR TODD AKIN

POWER FROM THE PEOPLE FUELS THIS EXCITING CAMPAIGN... COME ABOARD!

Note: the diarist acknowledges that this post is replete with factual errors on how union PACS work.  But the comments are instructive, so I'll leave it up for now.

Rank-and-file Democrats have a few more levers to pull to help the Bush-Cheney house of cards go tumbling down, and one that hasn't been worked nearly enough is questioning why, if you are in a union, your dues should be a major source of support Democrats who absolutely refuse to do their constitutional duty to impeach Cheney and Bush.  This is your money, and while there isn't much you can do about a Conyers if you are in his district  except yell and maybe run against him, you sure as hell don't have to sit still while the union PAC gives him your money.  

Here is a list of major union contributors to the hold-outs in Judiciary on impeachment.  Links to the union websites are here, to make it easy to shoot  an email to the PAC committee asking for a meeting on the PAC's criteria for contributions, which, as your money, you have a say in. Or if you march with labor on the picket line as a matter of principle, bring up the idea to the brothers and sisters of threatening to withhold contributions.  Candidates are adopted by a vote of the PAC committee, and these are your co-workers.

While celebrating Fathers Day this Sunday, please take time to remember all of the fathers who won’t be able to spend time with their families. They are the fathers who are deployed in Iraq. Some haven’t seen their children for months or more. Some have children whom they’ve only seen via photos.

As we share stories of our fathers today, I would like you to join me in a journey, back to a time when the title father meant something quite different.  Back to a time when a man who held a job could support a family.  Back to a time when a mother who chose to work did so for her own pleasure.  Back to a time when this nation was strong, her people lived mostly in comfort, and her goals were to lift up the children of the next generation through education, health care, and good nutrition.

My father would recognize this current incarnation of America only because it would trigger memories of an earlier time when none of these goals were even a glimmer in the eyes of a down trodden, struggling mass of men and women, victims of the greed and deformed egos of a hand full of those who are never satisfied.  Yes, my father was born during the last Gilded Age.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the tragic and preventable death of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez.  She died from heat stroke while laboring in a Stockton area vineyard when the company failed to provide her with the shade and water required by California law.  Her body temperature was 108.4 degrees when she was finally taken to a hospital nearly two hours after she collapsed.  Doctors found after her death that she was two months pregnant.

To date no one from the companies involved has had the decency to express condolences to Maria's family.

snip

We want to let Maria’s family know that people from all over North America care about this tragedy—that people from all walks of life and of all backgrounds recognize the value of Maria’s life and death. Tell the family that you share the sorrow of Maria’s death and pledge to do what you can, so other farm worker families do not have to endure the same agony.

Now, the United Farm Workers are asking people to sign a condolance card to her family.

Sign Here

More, after the fold.

There's a piece in today's NY Times with substantial quotes from several construction workers - mostly focused on safety. Having had several high profile construction tragedies in the recent past, this is no surprise. But what struck me in this piece was the universal tone of the workers in crediting unions for being in a safe workplace. A few sample quotes: